 This evening, Christine, who also serves as the Chief Curator and Director of the Sevres National Museum, will share highlights of Sevres' fascinating history and discuss the techniques and traditions that keep it at the forefront of contemporary ceramic design. Prior to her appointment at Sevres, Christine served as the first Chief Curator and Director of the Chateau-Borlie, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Fayonze & Fashion, and the Musée Gros-Bé-La-Bédie in Marseille. Christine has also curated exhibitions on decorative arts, ceramics, glass, design, and fashion for the Louvre and the Ceramic Museum in Rouen, as well as for museums in Russia and Taiwan. So a warm thanks to Christine and her colleagues Sylvie Hébrard, who is leading our design by hand workshops this week and corrected one of my lines on my plate earlier this morning for sharing their deep expertise and dedication to this craft. And a very special, special thank you to our partners at Van Cleef & Arpels for their exceptionally generous support of this program designed by hand. And now, I have the great pleasure of welcoming my dear friend and Cooper Hewitt Chair-Trustee Alain Bernal, who is President and CEO of Van Cleef & Arpels, of the Americas, quite a mouthful. Over to you. Good evening. Thank you very much, Caroline, for this introduction. So I promise I won't mention what you did this morning, which is the plate with the name of your son and a beautiful French flag, which is absolutely gorgeous, and I saw like 15 minutes ago. Thank you very much to be so numerous in this room. We are kind of sold out tonight, which is amazing. Thank you so much. So for those of you who have already come to one of these lectures, you know that there are a few differences between Caroline and myself. She's much more charming, she's much smarter, and she's much more prepared because she had a long speech, and I just have a small piece of paper. I am together with the whole team of Van Cleef & Arpels, which is here tonight, incredibly proud and pleased to co-introduce this new chapter of Design by Hand. I'm thrilled because of the Cooper Hewitt and because of the manufacturer, the Sevres. Because of the Cooper Hewitt, because, as Caroline mentioned, we have a long-lasting relationship. I usually mention our love story, where I can talk about passion after four years of Design by Hand and six years of partnership. Six years ago, I'm sure some of you visited the first exhibition we organized together, which was called Set in Style, 2011 already, which was the exhibition just organized just before the closing and renovation of the museum here and which was a huge success and which was a start of a relationship. And since then, we have decided to create this series of lectures and workshops to honor and pay tribute to designers and crafters. Why did we do that? Because we share the Cooper Hewitt and Van Cleef & Arpels the same belief that in this crazy world, this digitized world, completely dematerialized world, sometimes meaningless, we need some references and we need some human craft. And we believe that the human brain, soul, spirit and hand can in a way save the world by imagining, by creating, by designing, by crafting unique objects that can change and save the world and make it at least more beautiful. So that's our belief and that's the spirit of Design by Hand. So tonight it's about the manufacture of the Sèvres. Before that, I'm sure some of you were in the room. We honored a few incredible designers and crafters from Heath Thermix to Pixar, which was an original designer and recently Le Sages Studio, which was an amazing series as well. So we're thrilled. I'm thrilled also because it's a manufacture of the Sèvres, a manufacture of the Sèvres in the city of La Syramique is French, quintessentially French. There's something about France these days. So Caroline painted a French flag on her plate. I don't know, since like two weeks or 10 days, everybody congratulates all the French people in New York for any reason. The thing is, before President Macron, they were kings in France and the manufacture of the Sèvres was created in 1740, first in Vincennes, which is on one side of Paris and then moved to Sèvres in 1756, which is on the other part of Paris at the time of Louis XV and la Marquise de Pompadour, Madame de Pompadour, way before Presidents. And since then, the manufacture of the Sèvres has managed to stay really at the forefront of their heart, of your heart, despite all the technological changes which have happened in this specific art and industry in a way. I just want to mention as well that there is also a long lasting relationship and partnership between Van Cleef and Arpels and la Manufacture de Sèvres. We have created some pieces of Van Cleef and Arpels' pieces together with Sèvres, so some beautiful porcelain pieces, alambra necklaces and pieces. I remember the blue, I remember the raspberry pink, I could say that we are dreaming of making much more if only Sèvres had more capacity to supply, but that's the whole thing about design by hand. There is a lot of demand, a lot of appetite, but they just can't produce so much because it's not industrial, but it's designed by hand. So on that note, I would love to welcome Christine to that stage because you're the woman of the night and you're the one who are giving this speech. So Christine, thank you very much. Thank you very much. You are so kind with me. I apologize because my English is not as good as I want, so I want to speak French. But I have a very good translator, yes. So, merci beaucoup. I'm very proud to be there tonight. I'm very proud to present the history of the manufacturing and the museum from the 19th century and today. So we have to maybe to see the film now. Yes. Oh yes. This is an excellent introduction, I think, with this film to show you what Cèvre is doing today, to know also extravagant pieces that in the 18th century, this potpourri that was made for the Pompadour, the master of the King Louis XV. So this is a very good introduction with this movie to show you what the manufacturing of Cèvre was able to do. And with this potpourri from the 18th century for the marquis de Pompadour, Madame de Pompadour who was the mistress of King Louis XV. So, as you said very well to Alain Bernard before me, which is perfectly the history of the manufacture of the Cèvres, it all started around 1740 in Vincennes, very close to Paris, and to make porcelain tender first. And so as Mr Alain Bernard explained a little earlier and is very knowledgeable about that, he explained that it started in the east of Paris at Vincennes in 1740 and it was starting with a soft-paste porcelain. And the manufacture is set in 1756, so in Cèvre, on the side of the stage and especially very close to the castle, from Bellevue which was the castle of the Pompadour. And in 1756, it moved to Cèvre which is on the bank of the river Seine and it's very close to the chateau de Bellevue where the mistress of Louis XV, Madame de Pompadour, was living. And so in the 18th century, porcelain was considered as a white gold, it was so precious and everybody was interested in all the various cultures and how the Chinese people were able to produce this hard-paste porcelain and that was produced in Germany by Meissen and the manufacturer of Cèvre was very interested in producing this kind of porcelain. And so the main sponsor of the manufacture of Cèvre was Madame de Pompadour and you can see her in those two images and she was really a specialist of art, she was really interested and motivated by art and she was very interested in the coloring, in the decoration, that was one of the characteristics of the porcelain of Cèvre and as you can see in this painting by Maurice Quentin, a famous painter of the time, she's surrounded, she's in an artistic environment, you can see she's reading a musical score, she has some drawings on the floor, she has some books, she's really in pictures behind her paintings and she's wearing very elegant clothing as well. So she works very actively and she manages to convince the king, her lover to find the manufacturing of porcelain de Cèvre and he's taking some money from the royal budget to start this manufacture of Cèvre. And so the people of the court were living in the Versailles and here you can see above the top you can see the château and at the bottom you can see the garden and it's very elegant, people were having very nice time and they love to have parties. And so there was a style which was really particular, very popular, it's called the white gold because there was the gold as you can see there, the decoration and you have the white woodwork underneath and this is a picture of actually an actual mansion which is located in the Marais neighborhood in Paris and it's called Hotel de Soubis. La Pompadour fait venir à la manufacture, le peintre du roi, l'un des plus fameux qui est François Boucher et qui représente là aussi le style très léger, très contemporain de l'huit quinze, où il présente ici une sultane, donc ce n'est pas la Pompadour bien sûr, mais on sait que la Pompadour aimait beaucoup, notamment s'habiller en sultane. And so Madame de Pompadour, she was very interested in people like people from the sultane environment and so she asked, she had the painter Boucher, the famous French painter Com, and worked for the manufacturer of Sevres and it was a very light spirit and very interested in oriental things and this is not Madame de Pompadour but this is the wife of a sultan. So François Boucher peignait à la fois des saines galantes mais également des saines mythologiques comme ici le bain de Dionne qui incarne totalement l'esprit français du 18e siècle, une peinture très élégante, très brillante, avec beaucoup de couleurs claires qui plaît beaucoup. And François Boucher was not only painting things that were erotic or light but also mythological themes like you can see this is the goddess Diana who is the goddess of hunting and she's having a bath and you can see here some characteristics of the light colors and the light spirit that was also found in the manufacturer of Sevres. And the manufacturer of Sevres was sponsored by very important people including several famous women and here you have Marie Antoinette who was the the spouse of Louis XVI. Some of the main characteristics of the Parcelaine de Sevres is sculptures, gold and also the colors that were used. And from the mid-1970s it was made of hard porcelain because we found the secret of the Kaolin. And so in the 18th century in 1756 the manufacturer went to Sevres and around the half of the 18th century the manufacturing people were able to create the hard-paste porcelain. In about the 1775 years. And one of the most famous creations of the Sevres manufacturer is called the bisque. And this is a type of sculpture which is not enameled and so it is just the sheer sculpture and so it allows you to see all the very specific details because it is not covered by the color of enamel. And this type of sculptures were placed at the center of tables and so they were called sur-tous over everything and this was the manufacturer of Sevres was very famous for providing these kind of objects. And this on the picture is a potpourri so it is very famous for its colors for its charming aspect and this has been reproduced recently and that's what you could see in the movie that we saw a little earlier. And so the combination of those colors like this specific pink, this specific green and the golden color became a characteristic of the porcelain of Sevres. And so there are some extravagant pieces where the manufacturer that were produced and this is called the breast bowl and it was supposed to, it was made for Marie Antoinette and some people say according to the legend that it was molded after Marie Antoinette's breast but of course it's not true. But it's a very particular service made for the breast bowl letter that Marie Antoinette was the queen of. But it's a very specific set that was produced for the dairy of the city of Rambouillet where Marie Antoinette was very interested in the dairy system. And because in Rambouillet there was and there still is a very big forest and Marie Antoinette, the queen would like to go there. So these very fascinating, creative items also contributed to enforce the well-known manufacture of Sevres. And so Sevres continues to produce and to progress in its well-known system so it has a conservatory of manufacturing porcelain and here you can see at the top you have the mill in the middle the sculpture and then the throwing and the wheeling of the porcelain at the bottom. And Sevres is preserving all its molds since the beginning of the 18th century you can see that in the storage there. And at the bottom it's a system to put the glaze, it's the enameling system and it's a very specific system of manufacturing. And it's very complicated today to find workers who know how to do this you need a very, very big hand, in particular, to not leave traces underneath. And it's very difficult to find people, craftsmen to be able to do that because you need to have a very big hand in order to hold the plate without leaving any trace of your hand onto the plate. And it's a very specific technique but now you have younger craftsmen who are developing new techniques by diving their own harm into the glaze etc. And the colors of the manufacturing of Sevres are also very famous and Sevres has been keeping all the pigments and the colors since the 18th century and it has a whole range of colors and some of them are even dangerous because they have special minerals in them but it's still keeping them. And so Sevres was very well known for its white color, its blue color, its gold color but it has, generally speaking, it had a whole knowledge about all the colors and people still come to the manufacture of Sevres to get some advice about the coloring of all the decorative arts. And when we work today with contemporary artists, we are able to create the very specific color they are looking for. So here is the gold work that you can see in different stages and especially what we call gold with its effects since gold will be more or less worked, more or less browned, as you can see below to create relief and different shades. And it was a royal privilege. In the 18th century, when Louis XV supported the manufacture, he was given the privilege to pose on ceramic gold and only Sevres had the right to do it. And that was a royal privilege. It was only for the king that one could put some gold on the porcelain of Sevres and started with Louis XV. And the gold is very precious, it's 24 karats. And this is one of the pieces that that's what you saw in the first little movie that we re-edited, we recreated that. It was a nave, it was called a nave and it was from the 18th century and it has some grits and it's a kind of papery in order to let the fragrance come out of it. It comes out through the holes of the vase. We have 10 different samples of this papery and the American museums have been particularly attentive to these samples since three American museums have them, and in New York you can see two, one at the Freak Collection and one at the Metropolitan Museum. And there is another one at the Getty Foundation. And Sevres is still producing some soft porcelain, some white porcelain, white paste porcelain since the 18th century and that shows you the delicacy, the brightness and the very thinness of the porcelain that we're still producing some of those. So this first of all, this white porcelain was really for the aristocracy but at the beginning of the 19th century the structure of Sevres became imperial with the Napoléon and the choice will now be made on a production of hard porcelain with extremely covering decorations. As you can see, we no longer see the color of the porcelain and the 19th century chose the hard porcelain and the porcelain becomes a support of the decor as if it were a painting. And so there is a total change in the concept in the sense that the porcelain in the 19th century is totally covered by colors. So you don't hardly see any white leftover because porcelain becomes a kind of medium and there is like a painting placed on the porcelain. And the new director of the manufacturer is very young, he's 30 years old, he's very interesting and his name is Alexandre Brognard. He's a great scientist, he's a chemist, he's also interested in geology, he teaches at the Museum of Natural History and by his father he knows a lot of artists. His father is a great architect of the Napoléon and he knows a lot of artists who will make him work for Sevres. And this director, Alexandre Brognard, was very interesting because he was a scientist, a chemist, a geologist. He was working at the Museum of Natural History and he also knew a lot of architects and artists. And so in 1823 he created the Museum of the Manufacture of Sevres and the idea behind that was that it would be a source of inspiration for the craftsmen and the artists working in the manufacture of Sevres. And so he buys ceramics and porcelains from all over the world so that it becomes a really wide range source of inspiration. And the challenge that he puts toward the craftsmen is not only do they have to do as well as is produced when you see those pieces but it has to go even better, to be done even better than what it is. So for example this is an Indian flag and it's very different from porcelain de sevres but it was realized very creatively and very well by porcelain de sevres. And there are some very extravagant items of porcelain de sevres and this is for example the elephant vase and you can see that at the Metropolitan Museum. In the 18th and 19th century in the production of table and tableware like here a very famous vase called the Littron vase that you have at the top. And Sevres, the manufacturer of Sevres will also make a lot of tableware and all kinds of sets and here you have a very famous one at the top which is called a kind of, it's a special cup. It's called Littron cup. And you can see what is below the cup, it's this kind of deep thing because imagine that you're carrying your candle in one hand and your cup in the other hand like that the cup doesn't shake and so you don't spread your liquid from the cup. And the porcelain de sevres also takes inspiration from all kinds of natural things and when you look at the birds they look great, they are beautiful and you can feel the light but you also have a little bit of a light and you don't know anything about it, but you can feel the light and you can feel the light and you can feel it. And this is the same thing you can see at the top when you look at the birds, they look at the birds that were studied by a buffon, a very famous French naturalist, and so it is really implanted within the DNA of the manufacturer of sevres to be close to its time, close to its artist in order to produce what it is doing. For example, to make sure and keep the memory of the Egyptian campaign of Napoleon, of course, sevres will produce pieces in eco with this discovery of Egypt for the soldiers of Napoleon and for France. So you have an asset of the Egyptian service, the anchor, which is the shape of the chain, of the head of the pharaon, and so for example, as you probably know, Napoleon had the, had some campaigns and in Egypt, for example, and so Sevres was trying to connect to that and so you can see the pharaon there on one of the porcelain of Sevres and on the right hand side, you have the kind of headdress of a pharaon, and you have all these sources of inspiration coming from this campaign in Egypt. And this tea pot is also very famous, and it has the shape of an egg, but it's also part of that Egyptian set. So there are still some very extravagant creations, whether it's in sculpture, with sculptures practically in the human size. Here it is the Imperial Prince, so in the 19th century, the Imperial Prince with his dog, a sculpture quite charming. We saw the biscuits earlier in small sizes, but Sevres can make very large sculptures. So the Imperial Prince with his dog made by Carpeau, who is the great sculptor of the Paris Opera. And so there are some very extravagant pieces in the manufacture of Sevres. For example, this piece is at a human size, and it's the Imperial Prince, and it was created by Jean-Baptiste Carpeau, who is the one who created the sculptures at the French Paris Opera, Opéra Garnier. So the biscuit invented in the 18th century has a lot of success until the beginning of the 20th century, especially with this very beautiful ensemble. In fact, it is a pop-up dancer who is presented, in particular, at the Universal Exhibition of 1900. And this porcelain made of the bisque style of porcelain, which started in the 18th century and was created until the 20th century, was a very interesting part of the manufacture. And here you can see a dancer with a dancing with a scarf. It was Loïc Fuller. And that was Loïc Fuller, the famous dancer. And the elephant at the bottom was created by one of the first artists, foreign artist, who was invited to be a fellow at the manufacture of Sevres, and his name is Numata. He created that in 1906. And at the end of the 19th century, there is a totally different way, a pathway that the manufacture of Sevres is adopting. We're thinking about the coloring and about the way of decorating the porcelain, and it was under the director called Alexandre Sandier. And as you can see, the porcelain is more clear, and above all, we consider the vase as a whole. That is to say, the decor is slanted, the decor turns around the vase, and there is no more one face and another face. There is no more one face A and one face B. Each vase has a decor that turns around and therefore makes the vase a single piece. There are not so much deep colors, and also there's another aspect of that type of porcelain, which is that you don't look at it from side A or side B, but it is a kind of shifting kind of decoration. So you can look at it from every single side of it. And also all the bronze framing and all the bronze decoration was eliminated with this kind of porcelain. And so it makes it more modern and more accessible for a wider audience, with the details are smaller. And also we started to use less gold. With the exhibition of 1925, which you presented in the exhibition on jazz, which is at the stage of the Cooper Hewitt and which I discovered with a lot of joy and enthusiasm, wonderful exhibition. With the exhibition of 1925 serves your work with the greatest decorators of its time, and notably, Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann. And so with the exhibition of 1925, and it was really a great surprise, and I was really enthusiastic about discovering this exhibition that you have upstairs regarding the jazz. So Sevre was working with one of the main decorators of the time called Mr Ruhlmann. And so upstairs you can see two pieces of furniture done by Mr Ruhlmann. But here these are things that were created by Mr Ruhlmann, which are smaller cups. But they were also with very simple colors, very restricted in some ways. But they were also very big vases and big sets that were made for the ships. And there is also always in the Porcelain de Sevre, there is always the idea to highlight the object, to put it at the top. And so it is here, for example, on the left side, you can see it's on the little cube, and it was put deliberately onto the cube to present it better. And so Sevre was working in collaboration with several decorators who were doing all kinds of things. So they were called kind of hall-sáumers, with several decorators and who were doing all kinds of things so they were called kind of wholesalers to translate verbatim from French into English and so they were people like Mr. Rapin and Sevres became much more involved into the lighting system because and was creating some lamps and all kinds of things like that because the porcelain is very light and is very translucent and transparent so it was a particularly good orientation to develop the porcelain of Sevres. So this lamp was created by Mr. Pré in 1949 but it recreates it in the answers the source of inspiration that started in 1925 for the manufacture. So today Sevres pursues these re-editions of the 18th century, the Sevres always provides table services for the Elysée, for Matignon, for the great ambassadors of France across the world. She always provides table services but it is not, of course, its main activity, it has been oriented for thirty years towards the most contemporary creation and works with the greatest artists of the moment, as she has done since the 18th century. And so the manufacturer of Sevres is working on what is called re-editions, recreating things and it's still working on the tableware and it's creating tableware for the presidential palace, the Elysée for the Matignon and for all kinds of embassy, embassies in the foreign, French embassies to the foreign countries and this is one of the things it's working on but also it asked a lot of famous contemporary artists and creators to collaborate. So maybe you can recognize the creation of the Japanese artist, always also an amazing little Martian by Yayoi Kusama, she is very very special and it was a great honor to work with her, the Chinese artist here for this vase and also an English-American artist who is Kristen McCardy. And so this is a very inspiring artist on the top left side Yayoi Kusama and she creates this little golden spirit and it was wonderful to be able to collaborate with her and on the right you have another contemporary Chinese artist, Chudochun, and then at the bottom this is a famous Anglo-Saxon artist, Christine McCurdy. Christine McCurdy re-interprets the rose pompadour, you have a little offering here with a very little toast with this preciousness that we could have in the 18th century. And so Christine McCurdy is re-interpreting this pink of the pink color of a pompadour, Madame de Pompadour and she creates a little hole and on the other side what you see the white thing is a little bone. Of course the great French artist Pierre Soulage with a vase that was ordered especially by President Jacques Chirac to honor the competition of Sumo, so in Japan. And this is a famous artist called Pierre Soulage who created that vase and it had been created for President Jacques Chirac and this was for the competition of the Sumo writers, the Japanese fighters sorry. So the design is also one of the new orientations which continues with success with notably the great group of Italian designers from Memphis, in particular Edoressa de Sasse, Michele De Luki, Branzi, also Andrea Branzi. So you have here the creations and we're also working with some famous designers, Italian designers like Edoressa de Sasse, Andrea Branzi, Michele De Luki and some are based in Memphis as well as some very famous French designers like Pierre Charpe, like you see on the top right. So some of these vases became very symbolic. For example if you look at the top left, this is called the Metro Vase, because it recreates the tiles of the French Paris Metro. And of course it's a kind of a game and playing between the popular culture with the popular tiles of the Metro and the very precious porcelain of the manufacture of sevres. And some of some of the other ones like the one on the top right, they are called Medici's systems. So they reproduce some of the things that were presented on the rooftops and this one is using some equipment and some tools like screws and things like that. And it was created by Pucci di Rossi. And it's a totally contemporary reinterpretation of decorative vases. And so these are two of the main characteristics of the porcelain de sevres and you have the very deep blue color which is really specific to porcelain de sevres and then of course the golden color. And once again you can see that this item is not just flat on the surface but it has this little stem and it's standing up. So you can really put that. So this piece was created by Christian Biescher. It was an interior design architect and it is a kind of screen and it's done in porcelain. So as our dear director mentioned before, upstairs we have a very beautiful piece of furniture which has some plaques of porcelain and that was something that was characteristic also of the furniture making in the 18th century. And that was done by a traditional artist and some of the contemporary artists were inspired by that and this is an artist called Nathalie Dupasquet who also used that system to inlay things with the porcelain. And this is a little letter box for women who were keeping all the letters that they received and this is one of them. So the museum is located right in front of the manufacturer and that's the one I am a director of and it was started in the 18th century and I started collecting pieces from all over the world, pieces that are ceramic and earthenware and all kinds from all over the world because that was a source of inspiration for the people who were manufacturing things at Sevres. For example the vase on the right side which is a top right side which is a etruscan vase. That was the kind of shape that you can find in all the some of the vases from the period of Napoleon. And of course Sevres was also very inspired by all kinds of Asian decorative cultures and here you can see some of the pieces that were collected on the top left. This is from the Yuan Dynasty, Chinese piece with its blue and then you have on the right side a Korean jar and then you have a lotus cup from Syria on the bottom left and on the right this is the blue from Persia and we were collecting all of this, people were collecting all of this in order to get a source of inspiration for the decoration, the ornamentation of the porcelain and the coloring of the porcelain. And so all of this was a source of inspiration for all the items that you can see here and one of them that I hadn't mentioned before is this kind of molded flowers that were also a specialty of the manufacture of Sevres and it was in order to which was started at the end of the 18th century and it was in order to be in competition with the Meissen factory. So a magnificent collection of faience which are extremely impressive pieces of faience being the main ceramic in France since the 17th century until the first half of the 18th century. And this is a very beautiful collection also of ceramic and of course it was very popular in France especially from the beginning of the 17th century until the middle half of the 18th century. And these are European porcelains, so you can see here the very famous pieces the animals which were produced by Meissen, the German manufacturer. And all of these pieces allow the Museum of Sevres to produce these pieces largely inspired. You have at the bottom the great Vase Nettune which is 3 meters high and which is a challenge launched for a universal exhibition. And all of this is a source of inspiration for the pieces that you can find in our museum and for example this vase at the bottom this white vase is 3 meters and that was produced as a challenge for one of the universal exhibitions. And you can see the Napoleon vase on the top right now it was connected to the more antique Etruscan vase that we saw earlier. So the Art Deco that you can discover here in this exhibition on the jazz with so here is a really strong moment of participation of the decorators and workers of Sevres really a very nice collaboration in the 20s and 30s. And here you can see the Art Deco and you can see quite a lot of that upstairs with the exhibition of 1925 and you can see the collaboration of the people doing the ornamentation and the workers. And contemporary pieces like with bourgeois on the bottom right natural study and so you have here the Bar de la Lanne which was made for the French president Pompidou. And there was something that was created for French president Pompidou. And you can see the body of a woman there in the middle of the slide and it tells you how we also ask artists or creators in order to them to challenge the people who are working in the various workshops of our manufacturing in order to to progress in their know how and the way to to deal with the production and the processes. And so there is also an orientation that we are going into a pathway for example at the bottom left we have some kind of what we call urban furniture and we're working on that and we're also working for example in the Paris metro the subway in Paris and we hope to produce some things when we start to build the big subway all around the city of Paris. And so as you can see the manufacture of a save is really connected to its own time and to the with the great artist and also it explores ways of progressing in the know how of doing things and also the way that the artists and the craftsmen can collaborate together and that's really one of the goals of our manufacture nowadays. And so the manufacture of a save was produced at the beginning as a kind of expression of the fantasy when it was promoted by Madame de Pompadour and it was to promote the French culture and through what was called the golden white and now it continues in order to kind of progress and to accomplish more diverse things. Exactly. I welcome you and I hope some of you see the opportunity to come and visit our workshop and you can see the people working in the workshops and also visit our museum and it was a really good opportunity for me to exchange my knowledge with you and I hope thank you very much for being so patient and it was a great pleasure for me. So we have time for a few questions. If you have a question please raise your hand and I'll come to you at the mic. Yeah. How did they manage just the microphone on? How did they manage to survive the revolution before the rise of Napoleon? After the revolution? Yeah, when the revolution and at the end of the 18th century? Yeah. And then before Napoleon came along. OK. Alors à la fin du 18e siècle, il y a la révolution effectivement et la période a été très compliquée pour la manufacture parce que les ateliers et bien se faisaient la guerre entre eux en fait entre ceux du plâtre, ceux de la peinture, ceux de la décoration mais malgré tout et bien il n'est jamais venu à l'idée de quelle comme politique que ce soit de supprimer la manufacture et elle a été mise en sommeil pendant la révolution et dès la fin du 18e siècle elle continue à produire de très belles pièces qu'elle fait acheter par des par des marchands. And so yes indeed at the end of the 18th century it was a difficult time for the manufacture because there were some kinds of internal wars between the people and between the various workshops in the manufacture, the people producing the plaster, people painting, people ornamenting but it was always it was never completely it was never attacked by the sovereigns and the people in charge of the government so it was just like a sleeping cell for a while. And so there were a hundred and fifty people working in this manufacture so it represented a big amount of people so it was not something to be destroyed. It was a chance really. Can you speak to what it's made of exactly what porcelain is, clay, sand, you know. Blanche crème, pas tout à fait blanche mais qui surtout se raye avec un couteau avec l'acier on peut la rayer et donc il faudra attendre en France 1768 pour que l'on trouve un gisement de caolin près de l'image qui est donc cette terre très spéciale, très blanche qui permet donc à la patte d'être translucide, d'avoir d'être transparente et donc à partir de cette date là tout le dernier tiers du 18e siècle Sèvre va commencer en fait à pratiquer de la porcelaine dure. And so the porcelain as I said before it started by being a soft kind of material. There was no kaolin mineral inside of it so it was a creamy white cream color kind of paste but it could be scraped if you put your knife against it you could scrape it easily. So but in 1768 there were people found a kind of mine of kaolin mine near the region of the area of Limoges, the city of Limoges and so that allowed it was more transparent and that allowed us to produce the hard-paste porcelain. Et dans la première porcelaine pour la rendre plus blanche, alors que la patte ne l'était pas tout à fait, parfois on pouvait ajouter ce qu'on faisait en faillance à savoir de l'oxyde d'éteint. And so because the first type of porcelain was more like a creamy color than a white color, we could whiten it by putting some lead oxide. Et de l'éteint. Oui, tin oxide. No. J'ai rien à dire. In order to whiten it. Could you talk just a moment? Oh, I'm sorry. Tin. I think it's tin. Ça rendait la patte plus blanche en fait. So that would make the paste whiter. Could you please talk a little bit about how you find and train your contemporary crafts people? Je n'ai pas entendu. Oh, I'm sorry. Can you please talk a little bit about how you find and train your contemporary craftsmen? Okay. Artists. Le, la manufacture de sevre possède son propre sa propre école, son propre centre de formation. So the manufacture of sevre has its own school, its own training center. Et donc il y a normalement, il y a après un examen, il y a environ, Sylvie, tu me détrompes, il y a environ trois ans de formation. And so first you have to to take an exam. And then I believe you have to take a training that lasts for three years. Avant d'intégrer un atelier particulier. And after that, then you can work within a specific workshop. Et il y a à peu près 27 métiers qui sont représentés à la manufacture, 27 métiers différents. And so there are about 27 different professions that are represented in this manufacture of sevre. Et après donc il y a cette formation qui est permanente dans les ateliers, donc pour pouvoir à la fois réaliser des rééditions et travailler avec les artistes contemporains. Et donc il y a plusieurs types d'invitations, soit on invite des artistes qui pratiquent déjà la céramique, qui ont une connaissance, soit on invite des artistes qui n'ont pas fait de céramique et qui vont en faire à cèvre grâce justement à l'accompagnement des artisans d'art qui vont essayer de qui ne vont pas essayer, qui vont d'ailleurs aider l'artiste à mettre en forme son idée et à créer son œuvre. So there are two ways of collaborating with the artist nowadays. We can invite artists who are already specialists in ceramics and so they can come and work there in our manufacture or we also invite some artists who have no knowledge about the porcelain in particular and so they work with the craftsmen and the craftsmen are going to help them to create to translate their artistic concept into the porcelain. What was the experience for the factory during World War two? Did it suffer much damage and did it continue to operate? During the Second World War, the manufacture has been requisitioned to produce, in particular, elements for memory, for war, technical elements of the porcelain, of the technical ceramics for war and there were actually orders made by the Vichy's regime since it is a national manufacture so there were orders made by Pétain and there were also orders of service made by Göring. So yes, during World War two, the manufacture was requisited because it could provide some technology about the ceramics, especially ceramics that were used for the war and so since at the time of the Vichy's government, there were some orders that were provided to the manufacture of sevres and also by Pétain and Göring and also by Göring and we still have this set for Göring in our reserves and they were bombed, our museum was bombed so many of the items disappeared during the bombing. Is the museum supported by the government? Oh yes, it's like 33 other museums in France. Yes, it's a museum. It's a real decision. In France, there are still two national manufacturers, the manufacture of goblins for tapestry and tapestry and the manufacture of sevres for porcelain and it is true that it is a real chance that the state has decided to keep its know-how of perpetuating them, of prolonging them, by financing them. Yes, so we are supported by the government as well as 33 museums in France and there are two national manufacturers that are left over in France. This is the manufacture of sevres for porcelain and there's also the one of the goblins for tapestry and so the state, the French government maintains that, wants to maintain that and gives us some funding but we have also to balance that with the on the commercial point of view and receive donations every year and so in order to balance the production, we work in a more commercial mindset with some of the contemporary artists. I think we have time for just one more question. Yes, I'd like to find out in the the pieces you made for the presidents of France, are they one of a kind or were they produced in a limited number? That would be Shirek and Pompey. Ah, so there are only very small series of sevres. There are only very small series and so we rarely go beyond the ten copies. So there are, for the vase, especially under the age, there are ten copies. And for the bar at the top, these are extremely, these are particular copies, where there are very few copies. So these are very restricted orders, usually it doesn't go beyond ten samples for the same thing. And for example, for the Soulage piece by the artist Soulage, ten samples and also for the some of them are just, there's only a single one. So for the bar at the top, I think there are, I think there are two of them. Either it's a single piece or there's an example of an artist too, so there are two. Because there's one produced by the artist, so he keeps it and there's the other one. And so, but usually it doesn't go beyond five, seven or ten. And it's the specificity of the sevres, everything is made by hand, everything, everything, as you saw. So we can't have an industrial production. Everything is produced in very small numbers and they are every time exceptional pieces. And so that's also one of the characteristics of a manufacturer of sevres is that everything is handcrafted, absolutely everything. So we cannot move toward industrial production because everything is more or less unique. And even when there are twelve painters, so in the studio, well, fourteen, you tell me, nine. At that time, you told me twelve. So nine, there are nine painters. We can't, already, it's very, very complicated to charge even more their time and the manufacture turns into a plan. And also we only have nine painters working in the painting workshop, so they are very overloaded. Their schedule is very busy and so we cannot give them even more work because they're already working non-stop.